Can smart meters track your usage when they're not working?

sianny78

So, I discovered earlier this month that my gas smart meter had stopped sending data to my provider (British Gas) back in the middle of October. I only found this out when speaking to them about a different issue - they did nothing to notify me of this issue. During the call they asked me to go out and check the meter itself to see if it was displaying a reading - it wasn't, the screen didn't come on at all. I suspect it's had it but they've still not sent anyone out to look at it so my latest bill has been based on estimated gas usage. What I want to know, which the person I spoke to didn't seem to be able to answer, is what will happen when it gets fixed? If they manage to fix it rather than replace it, will the reading be the same as when it stopped working, or does it have some way of ticking over in the background even though it appears to not be working? I'm trying to work out what to expect when it finally gets fixed. The best outcome (for me) would be that there's no background tracking of usage and therefore I would effectively have free gas for that time. However, if it is somehow still tracking my usage, I'm concerned that I'm going to be suddenly hit with a big bill if the estimates they've based my bill on are inaccurate.

Olinda99

There are different degrees of broken, ranging from not working at all and not recording usage up to partially broken ie recording usage but not displaying or sending it.

[Deleted User]

sianny78 said:

So, I discovered earlier this month that my gas smart meter had stopped sending data to my provider (British Gas) back in the middle of October. I only found this out when speaking to them about a different issue - they did nothing to notify me of this issue. During the call they asked me to go out and check the meter itself to see if it was displaying a reading - it wasn't, the screen didn't come on at all. I suspect it's had it but they've still not sent anyone out to look at it so my latest bill has been based on estimated gas usage. What I want to know, which the person I spoke to didn't seem to be able to answer, is what will happen when it gets fixed? If they manage to fix it rather than replace it, will the reading be the same as when it stopped working, or does it have some way of ticking over in the background even though it appears to not be working? I'm trying to work out what to expect when it finally gets fixed. The best outcome (for me) would be that there's no background tracking of usage and therefore I would effectively have free gas for that time. However, if it is somehow still tracking my usage, I'm concerned that I'm going to be suddenly hit with a big bill if the estimates they've based my bill on are inaccurate.

If only life was that simple. Meters fails - smart or not. Most suppliers will estimate your ‘missing’ usage based on the historical usage data held by their data collector. 

Gerry1

Smart meters store 13 months' worth of usage data.  If it's just a display fault or it's gone dumb then the usage data can be extracted.

ariarnia

yes gas meters run on batteries so they can fail after a few years. but there display goes dark before they completely fail so they could still be storing the data. 

if the meter has failed then they wont give you free gas. they will estemate your use.

unfortunately for you if you have been cutting back this year then there default is to base it on last winter if you were with them then. or a customer average based on your use profile the rest of the year.

but you can argue (sometimes via the ombudsman) that they should measure using a different method. if they get it fixed quick they might use january (if the temp is about the same as December) so you can then intentionally use less but maybe be cold and miserable for a month!